Lotusphere Bound - A Look Back at the Journey

One might be forgiven for thinking things
have been pretty quiet around here considering, well, that it's been pretty
quiet around here. But looks can be deceiving, and I figure a 2-hour flight
to Orlando is as good an opportunity as any to set the record straight.
You see, the truth is that the little corner of the world occupied
by our family has been turned completely upside down in the last few months.
Not in an entirely bad way mind you, although major upheavals are always
stressful. The good news is that we've managed to land more or less on
our feet and things seem to be settling down finally. So, if you've read
this far I'll assume you're actually interested in specifics, so here we
go:

RECOVERING. As many of you know I was
banged up pretty good in July after being on the losing end of a bike vs.
car encounter on my ride to work. My left arm took the brunt, featuring
a broken elbow and collarbone, topped off with a good dose of soft-tissue
damage to upper arm and shoulder. Easy to write about, hard to live
through - both for me and even more so for my family. Could have
been a lot worse, and although it still hurts a bit and I'll probably always
be a little stiff in that area, I have for the most part recovered full
function for day-to-day purposes. With some work I hope to be able to ride
again, and maybe even shag some fly balls with Junior in a couple years.

SELLING. In October we put our house
in DC on the (buyer's) market and thanks to a great realtor and hard work
getting the house ready (mostly done by my lovely wife), it was under contract
in less than a week. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that
is no small feet considering how bad the US real estate market has become.
Next on the list, move out by mid-December...

BUYING. Once we had our house sold and
knew when we had to clear out, the next question was where to move TO.
Oh, you thought we had that one figured out beforehand didn't you?
Not exactly. Considering the aforementioned crappy housing market,
we simply didn't want to buy before we knew we had sold. We knew the neighborhood
at least, but now had to find a specific house that we liked, happened
to be for sale, AND which could be ready for move-in by our deadline. Again
thanks to a great realtor and bit of good luck, we succeeded.

PREPARING our presentation for Lotusphere
kept Bruce and I pretty busy right up to the Dec 7th submission deadline,
leaving less than a week to go before shuffling house keys.

NEW HOSTING. Both this blog and my Domino
mail were transitioned to Domino 8 servers hosted by Prominic
before pulling the plug on the home office server. Another reason for this
was the recent launch of the Domino/Blogsphere-based ESA
Blawg run by my friend Keith.
More on that later, but suffice it to say hosting OPS (other people's...stuff)
makes one less tolerant of server outages.

MOVING OUT. Packing, cleaning, more
packing, more cleaning, boxes, boxes, boxes...and more boxes. Five years
ago one truck was sufficient to move in, but it took two to clear out.
Not surprising I guess considering we had moved from a 2-bed apartment
into a 4-bed house but still amazing to see.

MOVING IN. Ah, the finish line. Sort
of. Decisions, decisions. What goes where? Where did what go? At
least we had our priorities straight. Step 1) get the keys. Check. Step
2) 3 hours later, get Verizon to install FIOS triple play (fiber optic
based internet/TV/telephone). 15 Mb down AND up. Cool. Check.
Step 3) Fall asleep (like a baby) on the floor because all the furniture
is still on a truck (sorry, truckS) that won't arrive until the following
morning. Step 4) Meet all the very cool and nice neighbors. Step 5 Everything
else...

BUYING NEW STUFF. Ah, the FUN part.
First up, a new TV to take advantage of all the cool High-Def channels.
We settle on an an awesome LG 52" 1080p LCD that now sits proudly
on a crappy old TV stand - don't notice as we're too mesmerized by the
amazing TV picture. Next, new fridge - A nice Kitchenaid with in-door water/ice
to replace the 14-yr-old builder's special with the funny smell. All this
is just warm-up though because now that we live in the 'burbs, one car
won't cut it. Daddy needs his own wheels, even if only to get to the train
station on his own. Hours and hours on AutoTrader.com and CarMax.com,
and several weekends burnt up test driving used Camrys, Accords, Altimas,
Mazda3s, and Hyundai Sonatas (beautiful car - incredibly fast and smooth
by the way), I finally spot a great deal on a beautiful deep green 2004
Acura TL. A good thing too as I REALLY like that memory seat feature you
only seem to find in the luxury brands. Not that I expect Mommy to drive
Daddy's car too much, but it's always good to be prepared. Even after dropping
$1700 on new tires and replacement for a bent wheel rim, a very good deal.
XM radio, DVD-Audio sound system, bells and whistles galore, and FAST.
Opted for the model without NAV and instead bought a Navigon 7100 portable
GPS. Having second thoughts on that one as the screen is quite a bit smaller
than the built-in ones (even though the Navigon is a larger model than
most). I'm bringing it to Orlando so I can clock our speed in the Boat
Race Monday. Hmmm...wonder if this thing works on the plane...oh
well, I'll just hope the pilot knows where he's going.

PREPARING for travel to Lotusphere while
working full-time on the day job as usual came down to the wire. I did
manage to get a decent amount of sleep last night though, even if that
resulted in more morning craziness than we'd hoped. At least the
new place is only 15 minutes from the airport. The $60 upgrade to
AirTran's business class has proven a nice finishing touch. Especially
nice as I've been able to type this blog entry comfortably.

NEW RELEASE. SuperNTF has seen a lot
of improvements since the current release, but the next one will require
a little polishing before its debut. I promise to resist the urge to add
any MORE features before then and just stick to finishing the ones I already
have. You will see many of the new features in our "Templates,
Templates" presentation (BP304 - Monday 5-6PM in the Swan somewhere).
Hopefully a week or two after Lotusphere you'll all get to have a
play.

Riding in the taxi now on the way to
the Dolphin, the Navigon is finally proving somewhat useful. Being a diehard
"map guy" this drive has always bothered me a little bit because
I've always relied completely on the driver to navigate. Not that
I want to tell them where to go necessarily, but I just feel much more
comfortable if I CAN tell them. As many times as I've been to Orlando
I have managed to acquire virtually NO road knowledge. As an example
of now useful this device is, I now know that the toll booth is 3.5 miles
from the hotel. And since it's also telling me we're travelling at 65 mph
now, with 1.3, wait, 1.2 miles left, I should probably just sign off and
say "Enjoy the show".

Disclaimer

This site is in no way affiliated, endorsed, sanctioned, supported, nor blessed by Lotus Software nor IBM Corporation, nor any of my past or future clients (although they are welcome to do so). The opinions, theories, facts, etc. presented here are my own and in no way represent any official pronouncement by me on behalf of any other entity.